


The Three (Disabled) Amigos

by gr0ss_cl0wn



Category: Achievement Hunter, FAHC - Fandom
Genre: Deaf, Disabilities, Hard of Hearing, HoH, Mute - Freeform, Selectively mute, blind, disabled, injured, light sensitive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-11-17 17:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18103265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr0ss_cl0wn/pseuds/gr0ss_cl0wn
Summary: There’s always a yellow and black line for you to stay behind when dealing with explosives, unless you’re blowing up the barricaded doors of a bank. That’s why Michael, Gavin and Ryan are now Deaf, Blind and Mute.





	1. Chapter 1

Gavin sniggered at the joke, but it wasn’t a funny joke. It felt like rapid gunfire from a few feet away, but you couldn’t feel it in your toes, just in your chest. It was me making fun of Geoff’s ears; well I guess it was funny.  
“You’re an idiot, Michael.”  
His hand came to my chest, so did his forehead, as he slipped into a full blown laugh fest. I found myself caught up in his excitement and soon we were both rolling over each other laughing.  
The dark room made the atmosphere feel fake without the lights switched on.  
But then again, everything kinda felt like a movie when you could only hear faint blurs, like everyone’s words were laid out on a tray and someone smudged them.  
Gavin’s words though, they were different.  
His British accent made words harder to read, but once I’d learned, I couldn’t stop looking at his lips, all day I was attracted to them.  
Literally.  
I love to read what he says because this stupid little British accent reads it out in my head, like there’s a tiny him sat there babbling away next to my ear drum.  
A passing car flew past our dingy inn room, the room becoming stupidly bright for a second.  
“Ah, piss!”  
Gavin burrowed the palms of his hands into his eyes and curled over into my lap, his hair tickling my belly button through the red shirt.  
He was stupidly light sensitive, and wasn’t used to it. Not even 2 weeks ago a heist required a big ass explosion, and us three Newly Disabled Amigos were wayyy too close for comfort.  
Gavin’s corneas had burned severely and now had to be kept in darkness or he’d go blind, my eardrums had chewed themselves to the edge of no return and now I was next to deaf, and-  
The door slammed open hard enough for me to feel it in my toe that was hanging off the bed and into the cheap shag carpet. Ryan, towel wrapped snug around his hips and fresh from the shower came in madly signing.  
‘G-A-V-I-N-O-K’  
Ryan, the third Newly Disabled Amigo had had a piece of glass from exploding windows get him right underside the jaw, luckily on the opposite side of his main artery. His jaw was hanging on from 2 almost severed muscle membranes and the other side of his face, like a hammock held up with thread.  
He pronounced himself selectively mute after 3 days in hospital and the whole crew crammed into his tiny room with a cup of water and a lighter to set a tiny strip of a brochure with ‘ryans voice’ scrawled on it on fire in a Viking funeral. What a mouthful.  
So now, the three of us were hiding out in an inn three cities down from Los Santos to take an All Expenses Paid Trip To Get Better Or Just Learn To Cope With Your New Disabilities Because There’s A Hei- yeah that was Jacks title, it goes on for a few minutes.  
I signed back, speaking my words with a looming drawl “yeah, cars”  
He looked so stupid coming out of the shower because, since he couldn’t get his bandages wet, he had to keep his dripping hair in a net. Bandages said victim, posture said candy cane, we said good ol’ Ryan.  
His under eyes were red-purple bags of stress and he’d been scratching behind his ear again, his mask was always pinching there. The skin was flaky and slathered in moisturiser.  
He walked past us dripping and into the little built-off kitchen to change into sweatpants as I turned my attention back to Gavin.  
My hand on his back, I felt him say something into my lap. Two taps for ‘no’ and he understood that I could feel him speaking, just couldn’t understand unless he let me read his lips.  
“If I go blind, I won’t be able to come on heists with you guys.”  
‘Yeah, but you are still the hacker and the deal maker and you can do anything we can do, just in the dark.’  
“But I won’t be able to see you signing”  
‘I’ll take speech therapy, just for you.’  
The worst thing about going deaf is definitely the fact I’d never get to properly experience Gavin’s voice again. Lindsay is my love and life and sugar and spice and everything nice, and growing up without hearing Iris’s and Luna’s laugh is basically a life not worth living, but Gavin’s voice is exquisite.  
Everyone else’s voices are like paint mixing together, but Gavin’s has glitter and sequins, the little scraps and edges that won’t mould in that make it worth learning.  
Ryan dragged himself back out and sunk himself a nice spot behind us, dampening the fronts of the pillows. I felt bad for him, he was always good at learning new languages but with sign language he’d only been able to memorise the alphabet. He kept to himself, spelling the word ‘mute’ and ‘voice’ over and over. I felt guilty, because while I got the biggest hit of the explosion and could no longer hear, I’ve always practiced sign language and don’t really need to hear. Gavin could no longer see but a huge chunk of his skills don’t require any light, just a new Braille keyboard. Ryan was the front man of the crew, our Doberman, and now he can’t even speak without his vocal cords feeling like barbed wire slamming into his stitches.  
Gavin exhaled warm breath onto my calves and I tapped him three times for ‘this isn’t yes or no it’s just I need your attention’. Jack was the best at naming things.  
He looked up and I mouthed ‘food’, he replied by getting his shoulders out of my lap and signing please, which I was really proud of him for.  
The walk to the kitchen was one of the moments you just never forget. I got off the bed and felt Ryan’s trail of shower water in the carpet, I bumped into Gavin’s shoe and hear myself shout a fuzzy ‘fuck!’ When I stepped onto the freezing tile. I couldn’t be bothered to try and get around the kitchen in the pitch black, so I just grabbed the box of brand-name Cheerios that was left on the counter and quickly scuffled back into place.  
The three of us shared that box. Ryan was stuffing Cheerios into the fabric of his face, ‘saving some for later’ he signed. The two of them laughed without me and feeling their joy, genuinely feeling it resonate inside my bones, made me catch up with them.  
It felt like we were walking together, but one of us got caught astray in a bush or something, but instead of calling the others for help we’d just untangle ourselves and hop back up to the group. We weren’t really disabled, we were just a little too easily distracted on this walk. I experienced the sounds, Gavin sobbed in the light and Ryan’s bandages leak thick blood.  
That’s when I knew this crew was for life. Geoff was in the penthouse adding Braille signs to all the doors and changing the lightbulbs; Jack was out making sure we were stocked chock-full of morphine and drops; Jeremy was modifying Gavin’s windows, bulbs, cars, everything; and we were here laughing over Ryan pretending to be Jack and sporting their Cheerio-beard.


	2. 01:38am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s 01:38am, let’s see what’s going down.

The room was navy blue and black two-tone, golden sheets of supermodel promotions that twinkled softly, like bugs. Gavin scratched his head with a sound reminiscent to eating sand and wondered. Tomorrow, he was going to his first deal as a photophobic person.   
No one knew outside of the crew, and Mr Burns had only been told his vision had been corrupted; why was he so worried?   
The gunfire is bright. The sun is bright. Fluorescent warehouse lights. Camera flashes. Reflective jewellery. Explosives.   
“That’s enough out of you, noggin.”  
Gavin’s eyes shut, the navy blue and black two-tone melded into a soft black and the supermodel promotions glittered in gold went to sleep. Off he drifted. 

Ryan’s stitches tugged at his bandages like a small child tugged an animal for their cuddly toy back: relentlessly. His brows knit together like a blanket as he resisted taking them out now, it was only a few hours early. Matt was taking them out first thing tomorrow as his mask was ready to fit a secondary-blast-injury, but why was he so nervous?  
What if he looked stupid. What if he needed to speak. Other crews could pull it open. What if it gets shot. What if he never gets to take his mask off again. What if it happens again.  
He rolled his eyes and along went his body.   
Staring smoothly at his wall, the small child asleep snug in his bandages and the animal comforted by Teddy the Bear. Asleep he went. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.   
Michael’s clock sat next to his ear all night. It was 01:38am exactly, he knew because each 60 second Tick was slightly more apparent. He felt the repetition just between his collarbones, in his fingertips as he lazily signed T-I-C-K over, and over, and over again. Soon, he googled it. His right index finger, slightly bent, repeatedly tapping the centre of his left palm, fingers outstretched. Then, he googled clock. Then he googled alarm. Then he googled every other item in his room and lost the soft ticks of the clock into the smooth current that flowed from ear to ear, encasing sounds in a silent murmur of water. And off he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google is really bad for finding references on detached jaws, but I did find out that Ryan’s face would look slightly swollen, with soft red scars and a slight droop. Also, I was going to end this as there being a fire in the penthouse but Michael was too busy signing swears to hear Geoff slamming on his locked door, but I would never do that I love this too much.


	3. Peacefully Disabled, Not Hindered.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace. Content. Serenity. Tranquility. Hey Google, What some more synonyms for calm?  
> Being disabled doesn’t mean his life’s a constant struggle.

He considered himself the luckiest motherfucker in that whole crew for one reason and one reason only.   
His face healed more or less fine and the only medical treatment he got after initial stitches was Aloe Vera and morphine. God fucking bless Matt Bragg and Kent, medical masters.   
It was sometime around 8am on a Saturday and Ryan was simply lounging. It was hard to get asleep when anytime your tongue brushed your teeth it scraped against metal stitches holding the flesh of your face together.   
After the stitches got removed, it was like Ryan’s prayers had been answered. He felt like he wanted to go visit his mother back in Georgia, 8 years after faking his death and show her that he wasn’t permanently shredded forever. 

The scars he had weren’t your typical chunky, bloated skin coloured flush pink with deep red worms outlining it all, it was a pretty neat slice. The only swollen-looking part was his left cheek, and even that was barely noticeable. A thick, blush line ran from under his left ear, to the corner of his mouth, down under the opposite corner of his lip and snug around the bump of his chin. White pinworm-looking threads twirled in the centre of his outline and small dots where the stitches were pulled accompanied.   
All in all, he thought he looked pretty fine.   
Under his hair were bumpy Deadpool-flesh shredding scars, and his right thumb and left index finger were both partially amputated, and that was the majority of the scars from this incident. 

He gripped the Creme-Egg cup of hot chocolate tighter and tried to salvage the last spouts of warmth. His eyes swirled into the potted plant beside the TV cabinet and practiced signing in his head. He’d gotten down how to describe himself, how to say he was mute, how to say he was hearing, how to ask for help and the alphabet; along with some few swears and crew-specific words the three amigos made up.   
The thing Ryan loved about sign language was the simplicity. He didn’t need to say ‘I’m going to piss myself if you don’t find the penthouse keycard right now’, he could simply sign ‘need toilet quickly motherfucker’ and hey presto!  
He also appreciated the lack of feminine and masculine specific terms. Fucking french took him 4 days to get down the masc/femme bullshit and he was still considering getting Gavin to remove the Duolingo Owl’s stupid face from patronising him.. if possible.

“Hey Ryan.”  
Ryan’s neck twisted behind him to show an early morning Jeremy, a rare sight.   
Ryan loved everything about early morning Jeremy from the way his bare feet make a suction noise when he walks across the hardwood floor to the way he only adds 2 caps of milk into pure black coffee. Ryan could spout off appreciation for the man for hours on end, but he didn’t know how to sign that much and Jeremy didn’t understand that much, so Ryan would gladly resort to writing a 10k essay on him if asked so.   
His right hand left the Creme-Egg cup and signed ‘hello’ with a wave. Jeremy sat down across from Ryan and only then did he notice it’d been raining. The soft grey skies hid all signs of blue and instead made soft white trails of rain drop onto the window, where the dark grey of the building and the soft grey of the clouds mixed into a small liquid ball of checkerboard. 

“What’re you doing up so early? Couldn’t sleep?”  
He smiled softly, the scars pulling at the corners of his lips as he set the mug between his thighs and signed ‘no, morning is good’  
First, his hands up and palms facing away, snapping them outwards.   
Second, a thumbs up pressed against his heart and arched right.   
Third, his index finger pointed up and facing away, twisted towards him.  
Lastly, a thumbs up jerking outwards.   
Simple stuff that Jeremy knew, it made him feel a soft feeling of existence. Not soft like a pastel hoodie, soft like a plushies fur. And happy, nihilist existence; Contentment in the worst circumstances; understanding your disabled friends appreciation for peaceful beginnings.

The morning passed in silence with Ryan fixated on swirling the un-dissolved chocolate powder and Jeremy scratching doodles into a leftover notepad and pencil beside the couch. It was smooth sailing through a lavender sea of sunset in the morning, drunk on calm while preparing for the beginning. Breakfast.   
Alfredo’s chipper wake-up routine was like clockwork each and every morning and that’s the way Jeremy liked it, Ryan could tell because his eyes followed Alfredo to the sink where they both waited in silence, “good mornings” hanging in the air until 08:55am, where the conversations began and Alfredo started up the kettle and Jeremy watched him from the kitchen island with new questions everyday and Ryan watched as the dust sat on the sinks silver bottom in serene silence. 

“You get a million dollars, but each time you wipe your ass there’s a possibility your toilet paper disappears.”  
“What, like, I just gotta get a new roll or..”  
“No, no, you go to wipe but you just end up scooping. With your bare fing-“  
“Hell no! That’s gross man!”  
At 9am, Ryan helped Jeremy make a fuck ton of Full English’s for the relaxed arrival of Jack, Fiona and Lindsay, Michael, Geoff and finally Trevor and Gavin.  
The spacious penthouse floor was swarming in an appropriately lazy manner. Piles of dishes partially blocked the TV as reruns of ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’ played on mindlessly, the occupants of the room talking and signing like it was a café of people who mindlessly loved each other like family, no matter their situation, they were peaceful together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Gavin’s solo fic ;)   
> I can’t remember if I’ve done Michael’s POV solo fic or whatever i called it, so if I haven’t, Michael’s last too ;)


	4. Rupture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stupid, buggering British boy and his stupid fucking hangnails.

We sat in silence but only in my half. He babbled away in darkness but only only in his half. He knew I couldn’t keep up with him when he spoke that fast, chewing his hangnails like delectable snacks, muting himself in my view. A soft hum in my ears but babbling in my eyes. 

I stared at his lips, they were chapped. With each consonant I expected two stiffened skin pieces to slot together and lock his lips, but it never came. So I sat waiting, watching, like a buzzard. Picking away at words I could read. Water. Soft. His teeth were stained a soft beige after many nights of not brushing and many mornings of mouthwash energy drinks. They were easy on the eyes and reminded me of his soft glow skin, tanned British boy who wasn’t supposed to be here with his slow cameras and his fast bullets. 

My eyes stayed forward but I focused on the light levels. Low. Lower than normal. Blackout bulbs. Bulbs coloured black for British boys buggered bulbs. Windows to the soul, more like stained silver lumps of gold sat in gelatine, concealed in white sapphire or glass. How gorgeous his eyes would look under light if only he could see in it, tears wash his gemstones cool and his eyelids steal the beauty before he can be damaged, like the Queens guards in the Tower of London. 

Buggered British boy in the Tower of London, having he lights turned down so the Crown Jewels can see their reflection in his tears eyes and whisper “give us the diamonds back.” “Give us the gold back.” “Give us our eyes, Buggered British boy.” He’ll drop his eyelids and dig his palms into his sockets, drugging himself with pain, intoxicated with pain, until the pain goes away. 

Soft cereal in watered down milk. He’d caught my attention but here was no need to shout, screams my ears. There was no need to shout, screams my ruptured ears. There was no need to shout screams the stream of blood slotting itself in the winding path of my ears. There was no need to shout but you caught my attention, you caught it and you’ve killed it, stuck it’s head on your wall, the wall that you built to keep the light out.

Suddenly the hum gets louder, suddenly it’s no longer a hum but just a soft murmur, an angels kiss when you’re on the floor. On the road. You’re laid down in the middle of a road and an angel kisses you, that’s when you know you’re fucked. When the angels kiss arrives. Goodbye life. Goodbye hearing. Goodbye light. Hello Gavin, if you’ve come to talk take your fucking hangnails out of your mouth and use your hands. 

They run over my neck, run over my pulse, run over my artery and my vein and I’m queasy. Smudging blood, not from my veins but from my ears, sticky mess all over my flesh, sticky blood all over my shoulders. I can’t tell if I’m gasping for air or if he’s choking me, his hands stay on my throat. They smudge my streams, dam my rivers, stop my flow. Suddenly the words become unintelligible. Buggered British boy and his buggered British boy words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This IS a poem, it’s not supposed to rhyme. Essentially what happened is Michael n Gav are chatting in the dark and Gavin has gotten distracted, talking about his cereal and how it went soft in his watery milk. Michael can’t understand him because it’s low light and he’s got his hands infront of him mouth so he can’t lipread and since his hands are being used to tear the skin off of them he’s not signing, rendering Michael unfocused. Michael goes on about his chapped lips, his pretty eyes, but Gavin starts squeaking about that fucking wet cereal and Michael’s eardrums start to bleed. Gavin panics, Michael’s like “bitch wtf this is ur fault” and can’t hear as well, and this is obviously setting off Conscious!Michaels panic system, but daydream Michael is just faffing about how he can’t breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Dudes this was so fun to write.. as someone who goes nonverbal and has auditory processing problems, it was slightly out-of-body to sort of get a sliver of what experiencing these disabilities is really like. If you or anyone you know is deaf, blind or mute, I have mad fucking respect for them man.  
> I did so much research for this and let me tell you Google is SHIT.


End file.
